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Monday, November 23, 2009

THE VARELA PROJECT, HOPE UNDER CROSSFIRE

THE VARELA PROJECT, HOPE UNDER CROSSFIRE
2009-11-21.
Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement

(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- With this document, today we begin the
publication of a series of reports, denunciations and declarations about
the Varela Project, the repression and attacks suffered by its
organizers, the government and its allies' maneuvers used to confuse,
silence, and discourage the citizenry and public opinion, as well as the
expectations and hope that spring from this civic campaign.

REPRESSIVE MAFIA-STYLE METHODS USED AGAINST CITIZENS

In recent weeks, the combined forces of the State Security and police
have unleashed repression and direct intimidation in several provinces
against citizens who have signed the Varela Project after the last
presentation of this legal initiative to the offices of the National
Assembly of People's Power.

This repression with its before-mentioned methods is being carried out
from Guantanamo to the west, town by town, with all of the resources of
totalitarianism. These days, citizens living in the towns of Cruces and
San Fernando de Camarones and other places in Cienfuegos are passing
through this tunnel of terror.

Citizens from these localities have asked us to denounce how they have
been treated like delinquents, taking their fingerprints and
photographing them. Some of these citizens, with every right, identify
themselves as revolutionaries. These and other citizens affirm that they
did sign and do support the Varela Project to the agents of terror
because they believe it is something that is good for Cuba and that is
their legal right.

We have received many statements from people who have been victims of
this terror, shamelessly carried out by these repressive forces, which
not only violate the laws, but also use mafia-style methods. We prefer
to report the facts with complete objectivity and without overtones, as
we believe they express the reality for themselves.

The methodology of this official mafia-style terror employed against
citizens arrested or officially cited for having signed the Varela
Project is as follows:

- Citizens are brought by police to their units and handed over to State
Security officials. They could be formally cited or led there

- Photographs are taken of everyone; sometimes with a number on their
chest, as if they were criminals

- Fingerprints are taken

- It is announced that a record on them has been opened with the State
Security

- They yell out the distorted version of the Varela Project that is
being disseminated by the repressive forces, denying the text that is
literally being read from in the actual document signed by citizens to
support the Varela Project

- They desperately try to deny the Varela Project's Cuban origin and
nationalist essence, attributing it to "imperialism"

- They widely use defamation against the organizers of this legal initiative

- Before a video camera, where they are filmed constantly, citizens are
coerced into retracting the fact that they had supported the Varela
Project with their information and signatures, and they are forced to
say that they were deceived

- Citizens are presented with an official warning and forced to sign it

- They issue threatening reminders about whatever weak point people
may legally have in their daily lives, and of some condition or benefit
that they or their family members could lose (for example, the person's
studies, leaving the country, a license for self-employment, home
repairs and whatever survival activity or participation in society)

- Citizens who do not agree to this blackmail are threatened and insulted.

Some people give in to these pressures, but the majority hold firm.
Meanwhile the campaign to collect signatures for the Varela Project
continues, and is increasingly identified as the alternative for the
peaceful changes that Cubans want.

Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement
Havana, Cuba, November 16, 2009

More information at www.oswaldopaya.org
Contact:
Francisco De Armas fdearmas@cyepr.com
Julio Hernandez mcl2004jhs@yahoo.com
Carlos Payá carlos.paya@terra.es
International Representatives, Christian Liberation Movement
www.oswaldopaya.org
www.cubadialogo2009.org

THE VARELA PROJECT, HOPE UNDER CROSSFIRE - Misceláneas de Cuba (23
November 2009)
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=24375

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